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April 22, 2016

Target, Transgender, and the Use of Bathrooms and Fitting Rooms

Target recently stated: "We welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity. Everyone deserves to feel like they belong." Here are my quick thoughts about their comments and this question.

Comments

Thank you! So refreshing. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading all the bigoted remarks towards full-of-common-sense mothers on Facebook. This is a much weightier issue than the surface issues being raised on fb. There’s a huge concern about policy implications. In a public—yet secluded—space, how is it fair for a woman to be conflicted if a biological male walks in? In recent cases, women were startled by men [transgender] because they looked like their biological selves and it sufficiently scared them. They “didn't feel safe.” Whether the intent was to cause harm or not is beside the point. And yes, predators will exploit this policy and it’s so disingenuous to scoff at this fact. They’ve exploited the transgender persona prior to any policy so let’s not take away our competitive edge. We’re “safe”-ish with the current sensible laws because we’re not conflicted; a man walks in [out of the ordinary] and we have the wherewithal to grab the kids/scream/get out. It’s simply not fair to make women guess if a man subscribes to the first camp: benign transgender or to the second: sexual predator. Women are now being silenced by a pc culture that is teaching them not to scream when a man walks in. I FEEL for the transgender community. But the solution is to prioritize safety for both sides, not marginalize one side by elevating their discomfort in an effort to elevate the comfort of others. It’s not good sense. It’s bad policy. Predators have the green light to walk in and the law that is backing them has given them the advantage the second they do.